


we might be hollow (but we're brave)

by ivermectin



Category: Gossip Girl (TV 2007)
Genre: Banter, Character Development, F/M, I hope?, Introspection, Libraries, POV Alternating, canon diverges at the season 5 final episode, discussions of chair, not very serena friendly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:22:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27127150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivermectin/pseuds/ivermectin
Summary: When Blair isn't at the Shepherd divorce event, Dan goes to the Waldorf residence instead, as you do.Blair has to choose between Chuck and Dan. She chooses herself, first and foremost.Andthenshe chooses Dan.
Relationships: Dan Humphrey/Blair Waldorf
Comments: 10
Kudos: 90





	we might be hollow (but we're brave)

**Author's Note:**

> so: no derena cheating nonsense, i get that they wanted parallels to old serena and the thing with nate, but, NAH, i don't vibe with it, haha. 
> 
> title from 400 lux by lorde.  
> this is not the first time i've used the lyrics of that song for a fic title, it probably won't be the last!

They’re at the barstools, the same place Serena had sex with Nate back when Nate was dating Blair, and Dan’s drunk and tipsy but the ache in his heart is shaped like Blair, and he looks at Serena, all golden light. She has this look in her eyes, a look he remembers seeing in Jenny’s eyes when she was scheming, a look that says that she’s running on a different agenda than he is, and he’ll always be a step behind.

Dan swallows. He shakes his head, moves away, leaving Serena sitting at the bar, a solitary figure.

-

Blair’s in the car, and she doesn’t know where to go. Distractedly, she gives the cab driver an address, and watches from the window as the streets blur by.

“Can’t you possibly go any faster,” she huffs. “I’m not paying you for the delay!”

The driver shoots her a look that makes her think of Dan, a _I don’t have to deal with your bullshit_ kind of look, and Blair sighs, gives him a sunny smile.

“Please?” she tries. It doesn’t feel like Blair Cornelia Waldorf, but she has no interest in being Queen B anymore.

She almost wants a do-over of the NYU experience. _Almost._

-

Dan reaches the Waldorf residence.

“Ah, Mr Dan, you are too late,” Dorota chides. “Miss Blair has already left.”

There’s the sound of heels on the tiled floor, and Dan looks in the direction of the footsteps. It’s Eleanor Waldorf.

“Ah, Daniel,” she says warmly. “You just missed Blair.”

“Did I now,” Dan says.

Eleanor watches him, as if waiting for him to say something more. When Dan doesn’t say anything further, she raises an eyebrow, clears her throat.

“Well,” Eleanor says. “Aren’t you going to go after her?”

-

Blair pays the cab driver, tips generously, because she can afford to do that, and it means nothing to her and everything to the driver.

She gets out of her seat, and walks in the direction of open doors, 24/7. The library isn’t a particularly fancy place, and once it was the sort of place that Blair would’ve considered beneath her. Now, she’s glad to be here, because nobody will come looking for her.

She walks into the children and teens section, and sits down, leaning against the wall in a space between two bookshelves. Everything is quiet, and it’s easy for her to pretend that her life is proceeding according to plan, in this gap.

That she still has control over her story, that her diary wasn’t leaked to the general public as part of some agenda of Serena’s that Blair would never understand.

That’s something she and Dan have in common, she thinks. Vanessa got Inside published, and Serena spilled the beans on Blair’s innermost thoughts and secrets.

She closes her eyes, and then opens them when her phone rings. It’s Dan.

-

“Hey,” Dan says when Blair picks up on the second ring. “You weren’t at the Shepherd divorce.”

“I know,” Blair says, her voice uneven like she’s been crying. “I needed to take a moment to myself.”

“I get it,” Dan says as gently as he can manage. “Tell me where you are, I’ll find you. If you want me there, that is.”

Blair swallows audibly. Dan wants nothing more than to be next to her.

“I always want you there,” Blair says, and there is certainty to her tone, something in it that is firm like steel. “I’m sorry I didn’t show.”

“No, I’m sorry; sorry that I freaked out over your diary,” Dan says. “I need to trust you, and I know that whatever you wrote in there probably fits into a specific context. A context that it was taken entirely out of.”

“You and I have the worst best friends in the world,” Blair says, her tone unreadable.

“I must admit, I’m not too fond of Serena right now either,” Dan says, and he gets into a cab. “Where are you?”

She tells him, and he tells the cab driver, and they’re off.

-

“By the Judy Blume books, seriously?” a familiar voice says, and that’s Dan. “Sort of fitting, though unexpected.”

He crouches over, sitting across her on the floor. He’s comfortable on the library floor in a way that Blair finds too endearing to even make fun of.

“My life isn’t really literature worthy,” Blair says softly, not looking at Dan.

“Daniel Humphrey, author of Inside, would proclaim otherwise,” Dan says, all formal. He reaches for her hands, holds them. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m scared,” Blair tells him.

“Of me?” Dan asks.

Blair shakes her head. She shifts, moving from her place between the bookshelves to lie down on the library floor, her head on Dan’s lap. Dan’s hand is gentle as he touches her cheek, his thumb smoothing over her forehead.

“Clearly not of the library floor or the sanitation in here, because you’re just lying down on it,” Dan comments. “Who are you, and what have you done to Blair Waldorf?”

“Clearly your nonchalance and bad life choices are contagious,” Blair shoots back. But then she frowns. “Dan, what if the only loves worth anything at all are the crazy ones? The ones that shake you and rattle you and make you afraid and elated and feel like you’re tethered on the edge of a cliff?”

Dan makes a soft humming noise. “I’d much rather choose a love who would catch me if I fall, than a love who’d push me over,” he says. He isn’t looking at her, or at anything; there’s a glassy and distant look in his eyes. “Guess we don’t get to choose, huh.”

“Everyone thinks I’m still in love with Chuck,” Blair murmurs. “Chuck was like a rollercoaster, but you, you are solid ground, for the first time in my life.”

“Blair, you already know how I feel,” Dan says.

“This is hard for me,” Blair admits. “But I am here, with you. And I don’t want to be anywhere else.”

Dan’s hand shifts, stroking through her hair. “If you change your mind, I’ll let you go,” he tells her. “I want you to be happy, Blair. With me or without me doesn’t matter.”

“And that’s why I choose you,” Blair says. “Want to get up from the library floor and go somewhere?”

“Yes,” Dan says. “Let’s go to a bar. Do karaoke.”

Blair sits up, gives Dan a look, and thwacks his shoulder (gently! but still.)

“I’m a better singer!” she says. She stands, offers him a hand.

“No way, Waldorf,” Dan says, giving her a small smile. “It’s _on._ ”

So Blair does the only thing she can think of doing – she takes Dan Humphrey’s hand, and pulls him out of the library, the two of them running through aisles of books together, and in that moment, her heart is so full of love for him that she can’t imagine being with anyone else.

She slams him against a bookshelf. “I love you,” she says, and she kisses him. Dan’s eyes are wide, and he kisses back with force, shifting, and his elbow bumps against the bookshelf, and _A Song of Ice and Fire_ falls out of the bookshelf and hits him on the head.

“Ouch!” Dan exclaims, and Blair laughs, giddy and delighted.

“Oh, you poor baby,” she says, grinning. “You know what Dorota says. Love is like a head wound.”

“Okay, and?” Dan asks, touching his head with a hand as if to see the size of the bump, while still leaning over to pick up the book from the floor. “There’s got to be more.”

“I don’t remember how it goes,” Blair admits, and she’s laughing.

Dan smiles at her, looking at her like she’s the most amazing person he’s ever seen, the expression in his eyes soft.

They’re approached by a librarian. She gives them both a tired look. “I’m going to have to ask you both to leave,” she says.

“How can you say that?” Blair asks, all cheery outrage. “This is _Dan Humphrey!_ He wrote – ”

Dan clams a hand over Blair’s mouth. “Don’t worry, we were on our way out.”

“Humphrey,” Blair says, once they’re out, and waiting for a cab. “You smeared my lipstick! You’re lucky I didn’t bite you.”

“Is that a threat?” Dan asks. “Are you secretly a vampire? Because if yes, you’re not even the first vampire girlfriend I’ve dated.”

“But I am the best!” Blair says. And she puts her hands on Dan’s shoulders, and she jumps, and Dan’s arms bracket around her, and he hoists her up, lifting her in his arms like he is the parent of a very small child.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s what they all say,” Dan says, but Blair can hear the smile in his voice. “So, karaoke and ice-cream?”

“Of course,” Blair says. She kisses his cheek, gets back on the ground, takes his hand, walks with a spring in her step.

Dan smiles at her. “Prepare to lose,” he says.

“I hate you,” Blair says, giving him a faux glare.

It’s not true. She’s never hated anyone less.

**Author's Note:**

> this isn't even the fic I meant to write, and now I have two new dan/blair plot bunnies just hanging out in my head, so clearly I'm winning.


End file.
